The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, outlined his strategic vision for ensuring European autonomy, in particular for the health and pharmaceutical sectors, before the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) on Monday 18 May.
For the Commissioner, relocating and recreating value chains in Europe can be done very quickly. The Commissioner pointed out that the EU had almost regained self-sufficiency in mask production in less than 2 months, increasing from 10 to 500 production centres. The same thing will soon apply to life support systems.
“On the other hand, there is still the problem of medicines. [...] I have been able to talk to the health industry: I think I can tell you that we will probably soon see some relocation. Not a total one! We shouldn’t tell each other stories, but certainly we are going to see certain types of medicine manufacturing activities being relocated to Europe”, he added.
The recovery plan will include in its ‘Resilience’ section a significant segment dedicated to the health industry, he said.
In addition, the Commissioner hopes that “strategic reserves on certain types of equipment” will emerge. “I think it’s important to think about it, and maybe the Commission would get a mandate on this issue, because I think it’s going to be a very important issue”.
For Mr Breton, the idea is by no means to put an end to globalisation. On the other hand, we must stop being “naïve”, it is necessary to rebalance globalisation in order to continue it, by acting quickly to protect ourselves from possible “predators” from non-Member States.
Restrictions on the internal market
During the exchanges, several MEPs expressed concern about the dispersal of Member States’ actions, whether for or against the lockdown, several citing the case of Bulgaria (see EUROPE 12488/8).
The Commissioner insisted that the situation compared to the beginning of the crisis had clearly improved, recalling that he had had to negotiate with 18 Member States on some 30 restrictive measures. “The most problematic restrictions have now been lifted”, he said. In the case of Bulgaria, he found the measures unacceptable and therefore opened infringement proceedings on Thursday 14 May.
However, Mr Breton believes that it is normal for measures to ease lockdown to vary from one Member State to another. The European Union is a continent, just like the United States, he said, before pointing out that disorganisation between states is much greater across the Atlantic than within the EU.
Internal Market and Industry Ministers agreed last Friday on a balanced approach between free trade and relocation (see EUROPE 12488/3). The Commission plans to present its pharmaceutical strategy for Europe on 29 July. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)